the quiet place

On the weekends, I am up before the sun. Most people my age think I'm nuts, but I look forward to the quiet solace Saturdays and Sundays bring. I get some of my best thinking done on the weekends while the house is still sleeping. I am totally content inside the confines of those early hours, just me and puppy breath and the smell of coffee brewing.

I have started trying to cultivate some version of this peace on my drive to work. I'm 20 days smoke-free, which means my focus is freed up a bit on that 45-minute commute. This morning I turned the off my podcast and drove to work-- in complete silence. I rolled down the windows and noticed the sunrise before me-- rays slicing through the clouds like the gunfire at the beginning of a horse race. Smoke billowed from box trucks, and has anyone ever noticed that people who drive Dodge Chargers don't feel the need to use turn signals when merging? Annoying, but I digress.

My mind began to wander, and before, I would have shut it up the second I saw it lacing up its boots... but these days, I usually give it permission to go wherever it wants without judgment.

I enjoy the quiet.
I enjoy mornings.
I enjoy the time to myself.
It is not selfish to admit that.

I wonder, though, if I treasure these quiet times so much as my sort of trade-off for not having children in my home to fight me when I try to put shoes on their feet. That's my grief process talking still, even after all these years. I've accepted my lot. I've accepted that my body cannot nurture tiny humans in the way that other bodies can. I've forgiven it for disappointing me, and embraced the things it CAN do instead, and still...

...still, here I am thinking about it.

I dreamed last night that I had a baby-- a son who we named Andrew. I remember my delight at being the person RECEIVING the congratulations from my aunts and cousins instead of being the person GIVING them for once. And he was beautiful. For a few hours last night I got to really FEEL that joy and my established place inside my family instead of just an accessory.

Everyone rushed in to see this human, swaddled in my arms. It was a gift, but it's left me feeling kind of lost in my feelings this morning.

It's fine.

Tomorrow brings another quiet morning with new mountains to climb.

the thing about deserts

underneath the paper mache
i'm thirsty and barren
and forgotten

and invisible
and tired
and empty

the thing about deserts
is they have no choice

in whether or not there are
footprints running through them

or rivers,
or scorpions,
or cacti full of sustenance,

or nothing at all

we created our own geography
and ripped the map to shreds
and the vultures ate the bread crumbs
we scattered
along the way

©2018

Normal, but not the good kind.

The normalness has settled like pollen all over our suburban 1960s mill house. It's a brick home, with pink azalea bushes out front and a flower pot on the front stoop that we use for an ash tray.

I spend a significant amount of time chasing dog hair tumbleweeds all over the hardwoods while he burns cardboard beer boxes and junk mail newspapers out back in the fire pit. The dogs have free roam of the half an acre of backyard that we mow semi-weekly. They nap in the sun next to the poison ivy we can't seem to kill. I paint in the living room while watching true crime documentaries. He smokes cigarettes under the car port. Life is, by all accounts, pretty normal.

The times do not come without struggle. In fact, I'd say struggle is the standard by which we operate. I feel more shut-up than I have in a long time, having just had yet another miscarriage-- my first one, though, with him. He was there through it, rubbing my lower back as I doubled over in pain on the bed. I sat on one of those puppy potty-training pad things to keep the copious amount of blood I was losing from staining our newish green sheets. It made him uncomfortable to talk about it, though, at a time where all I wanted to do was scream: I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING AGAIN.

And then it was done. I ran out of pain pills and eventually out of blood, and it was over for everyone but me. For me, it's this ever-present, really huge thing that I can't shake, like when you're in traffic and there's a tractor-trailer in front of you and you can't see around it to know if you need to change lanes or not.

So I stay quiet.

I can't blame him, though. This was his first miscarriage rodeo and there is no playbook (though I could have written one by now.) I remember finding it strange that he didn't know about my miscarriage rituals that I had formed over the years, but how could he? He wasn't there for the first three, and how was he to know that sushi is what I have for dinner every time a doctor can't seem to find a heartbeat? He had no way of preparing himself for the distracted brick wall I became when my body felt like a walking coffin and the cobwebs were really thick up there. I don't think he was prepared for the passive-aggressive, morbid jokes that ensued or the sudden burst of manic creativity followed by days and days on the couch.

I was trying to stay afloat, and he was trying to have a leisurely day at the beach. It takes its toll.

To him, it wasn't really a baby. I get that. To me, it was a real baby, because I was gagging every time I smelled sandwich meat, and I was exhausted. My boobs hurt. I had to stop drinking coffee. I had to inject myself with blood thinners to protect my placenta from clots, you know, just in case. I knew that the probability of losing this child was high and that I needed to enjoy my time with that creature living inside me for as long as I was able. Spoiler alert: it wasn't very long.

I think I'm mourning mostly because I know that will be my last pregnancy. Ever. My body has let me know that it can't sustain life, and now it's my turn to listen. My uterus is an inhospitable wasteland where nothing can grow-- a graveyard-- and I'm tired.

So yeah, basically what I'm saying is that everything here is normal.... so very, very normal.

For me.

It's not you, it's me.

Sometimes it just aches, you know? 

Depression.

I talk about it. I talk about it A LOT. Because we should.

I'm at work this week, after an amazing and long Christmas weekend. It was magical. I wouldn't change anything about it.

The house is back in order. I've removed the beautiful, but now-dead, tree from the corner of the living room and put my paintings back where they go.

There is something very cathartic about decorating for Christmas. Ritualistic almost. And having grown up in a religious home and then having later joined a sorority, it seems ritual has become really comforting to me in rough times. So the second the tree is in its stand, Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas album goes on Spotify and off I go.

But I also look forward to the fresh start that comes when Christmas is over. The return to a fresh, familiar space is equally as ritualistic for me. So last night I performed this ritual with an unprecedented meticulousness. I was on a mission.

Today I feel really low. I've been at work this week, but barely. My body has been sitting at my desk. My smile has been smiling. I'm crumbling on the inside. I can't tell you why, and that's how I know it's my depression. And since my limbs are all in place and on the outside, I look totally healthy, I'm really fighting to keep my head above water. 

This year has been exhausting. It's been horrible for most of us. Everyone is ready to see it go, and I am right there with them. But a few good things have happened this year worth mentioning. I will try to focus on those things while the fog lifts.

In the meantime, here's to a better 2017 for us all-- after all, it's now up to us.

More important things

A friend of mine forgave me this week for being merciless and cruel to her during a political discussion. She taught me that there are usually more important things in life than being right.